The murder and the reason for it sickened Ida. She was furious that the men had not only killed one of her best students but also frightened many other promising girls out of the opportunity of receiving an education.
The next two years sped by as Ida continued her work. Before long Uncle Jared, his wife, and Dixie returned to Vellore. By now it was time for Ida’s parents to take a furlough, and so arrangements were made for the three of them to sail back to the United States together in the fall of 1894. Ida’s brother Henry accompanied them. He had decided to return to the United States and study to become an ordained minister, after which he hoped to again return to India.
When they set sail on the journey to America, Ida could hardly believe she had been in India for four years.
As the journey progressed, Ida often sat on deck. The ship rocked gently beneath her as she considered how she was going to pay for her education. From talks with her cousin Lew, she knew that medical school would cost about $150 a year. But all the money Ida had amounted to about $10, and she knew her parents did not have much more.
It was wonderful to be home again when the ship finally docked in New York. Ida’s parents set up house in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where brothers Charles and Walter then joined Henry and Ida. Soon the three brothers all set about earning theology degrees, but it took Ida a little longer to start her career.
In June the following year, Ida found herself in front of the Women’s Auxiliary Board of the Reformed Church. The board was debating whether it was appropriate to send a single female doctor to work in India. The debate seemed endless. Despite Ida’s description of the unforgettable night when three women died because there was no female doctor to treat them, many women on the auxiliary board were concerned. Only fifty years had passed since Elizabeth Blackwell had become the first woman doctor in the United States, and many people were still not comfortable with the idea of a woman doing a “man’s” job.
Eventually one of the younger women, Kate Ferlinghuysen, stood up. “Enough of this,” she said. “If Ida Scudder feels called to work in India, then I move that we give her an education and send her there.” With that she unclipped her purse and pulled out a banknote. “And here,” she said waving the bill, “is the first ten dollars.”
Other women nodded in agreement, and soon a resolution was passed allowing the mission to sponsor Ida through medical school. Ida planned to attend the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia, one of only a handful of accredited colleges that accepted women, and one of the best. The top medical schools, like Cornell, did not accept any women into their programs.
Ida started on her degree in the spring of 1896. It was a four-year course, and she was eager to get working, as she would be at least thirty before she saw India again.
Medical school did not prove easy for Ida. She soon found that her education at Northfield Seminary had not provided a good foundation for medical school, not to mention the fact that she had forgotten much of what she had learned there, anyway. Undeterred, Ida joined a sorority, and the women studied together and encouraged each other along. One by one she passed her courses, gaining confidence as she went.
As 1897 began to draw to a close, Ida’s parents felt well rested and ready to return to their posts in India. By now Henry had finished his studies and married a local New Brunswick girl named Margaret Booraem, and the young couple was going to accompany Dr. and Mrs. Scudder back to India.
Christmas 1897 represented the last chance for the Scudder family to be together for at least four years. Everyone made the effort to meet at a summer cottage on Shelter Island in Long Island Sound. Ida was overjoyed to see everyone again. Her brother John and his wife and children came by train from California, and Lewis and his family traveled from Nebraska, where they still lived on the farm.
It turned out to be a Christmas to remember. Despite the cold water, Ida and her brothers swam every day, with Ida covering a mile before breakfast. There were clambakes and yacht races, tennis matches, and hikes across the island. But for Ida it all ended too quickly, and it was soon time to say goodbye to her father, mother, and brothers.
When Ida returned to Philadelphia, surprising news awaited that took her mind off her family. Cornell Medical College, one of the most prestigious colleges in America, had been given an endowment of one and a half million dollars, on one condition—that the school accept women students!
Everyone at the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia was soon asking the same question: if Cornell opened to women, who among them would be brave enough to be in the first graduating class?
It did not take Ida long to decide she wanted to transfer to Cornell. Cornell Medical College was located in New York City, and there were much better clinical opportunities in New York. Ida also hoped that there would be more emphasis on tropical diseases there.
When Cornell finally opened its doors to women, Ida and her roommate, Nell Bartholomew, rode their bicycles to New York City to transfer for their final year of school. This meant a lot of extra work for Ida and Nell, as they both had to complete the first three years of clinical labs as well as keep up with all the normal final-year requirements.
At first it was difficult for Ida to concentrate on her studies. Only a handful of women were at Cornell, and the male students whistled and stamped their feet whenever they came into a room. However, after a while the men tired of such taunting, and things calmed down.
Although there was not as much emphasis on tropical diseases as Ida would have liked, her father’s weekly letters kept her up-to-date on what was happening in India. Cholera had reached epidemic proportions in southern India, and hundreds of Ida’s father’s patients were dying every week. Many weird rumors were spread about how the disease started. One of these rumors was that a touch from a Western doctor was all it took to catch the disease. As a result, for several months, Dr. Scudder had sticks and stones thrown at him whenever he left the mission compound. Despite this, he wrote to Ida and told her of an ambitious program he dreamed of—to inoculate the local people against cholera. It was a procedure that had been known for only a few months.
Ida’s father was convinced that inoculation would save thousands of lives, and so he arranged for the government surgeon to pay a visit to Vellore. He then gathered all the local Christians together and explained to them how the inoculation worked. Wanting to be sure they understood how simple it was, Dr. Scudder rolled up his own sleeve and was the first person in South India to be inoculated against cholera. Many brave Christians followed his example. Within weeks the next wave of cholera spread through the region. However, because they had been inoculated, the Christians did not catch the disease. Suddenly Dr. Scudder was mobbed wherever he went—not by hostile crowds but by people wanting the inoculation themselves.
Ida was glad to read about this. The approach of the turn of the twentieth century was proving to be a time of great medical breakthroughs, and she wanted to learn as much about them all as she could.
In the middle of the year, Ida had the opportunity to say hello, and goodbye, to Dr. Louisa Hart. Dr. Hart was a young Canadian woman who had been recruited by Ida’s cousin in Ranipet, Dr. Lew Scudder. She had traveled to New York to catch a ship to India. Meeting Louisa Hart made Ida even more anxious to return to India herself. Perhaps, she hoped, they might be able to work together sometime soon.
To add more excitement, Ida’s brother Walter had fallen in love with Ida’s roommate, Nell, and the two of them announced their engagement. The couple intended to go to India after their wedding, making three female doctors who planned to serve there. Ida could hardly believe how blessed she was to have her best friend marry her brother. And as if that were not enough, Annie Hancock, Ida’s friend from Northfield Seminary, had applied to the mission board to go with Ida to India.
The final year of medical college continued, and Ida was so busy she hardly had time to think. She spent her clinical assignment delivering babies in the slums on the Lower East Side. Then, finally, in June 1899 it was all over. Ida had taken her last exam, and now all she had to do was wait for the results. She hoped and prayed she had passed.
In the meantime she moved out of the college dorm and into a house on Fifty-sixth Street that was owned by an elderly spinster, Katharine Van Nest, the Women’s Auxiliary secretary for India. Ida planned to stay with Katharine until November, when she planned to sail back to India, hopefully with Annie Hancock.
Much to her relief, Ida learned in July that she had passed her exams. She was now Dr. Ida Sophia Scudder.
Now that Ida was a doctor, the mission directors had a new assignment to keep her busy until she sailed for India. It was an assignment that both surprised and delighted her. In the short time Dr. Louisa Hart had been in Ranipet, she had seen for herself the terrible situation the women of India found themselves in, and she had come to her own conclusion: there should be a hospital for women in Vellore. The mission agreed, and now it was Ida’s job to raise the eight thousand dollars necessary to build and supply the hospital.
Eight thousand dollars! Ida gulped at the huge amount that needed to be raised. But at the same time, she was thrilled by the whole idea of raising the money. With three female doctors and an assistant like Annie Hancock, her mind buzzed with the things that could be done through the hospital.
Ida set to work right away, making lists of people to call on and drawing up charts of facts and figures. She found that in India there was one doctor for every ninety-five hundred people, whereas in the United States there was one doctor for every five hundred people. No wonder, she concluded, that the life expectancy for Indians was twenty-six years while life expectancy for Americans was fifty-four years. India desperately needed more hospitals and more doctors to staff them, and especially a hospital for women.
Ida found few people who were interested in hearing about plans to build a hospital for women in far-off India, and fewer still who were willing to make a donation toward it. With just ten days left before she was due to set sail for India, she had only a few hundred dollars in hand that she had collected, not nearly enough to make a start on the project.
Still, Ida would not give up. She felt sure that God meant for them to have a hospital for women and that the money would come, somehow. On Saturday night, a week before she was to leave, Ida sat alone in the front room. Katharine came in carrying two cups of coffee.
“You look like you need some cheering up,” Katharine said, handing Ida a cup.
“I do,” Ida admitted. “It’s so frustrating. I have given my presentation a hundred times, but no one seems to care. Is there something wrong with it? Aren’t I putting things the right way? I just wish I could take people to India and show them, let them see the misery and need.”
“I know, I know,” Katharine replied, patting Ida’s leg. “Sometimes God has strange ways of doing things. You mustn’t give up.” She walked over to her desk and picked up a piece of paper. “In fact,” she continued, “I have an idea. I received this church bulletin in the mail today from the Collegiate Church down the street. They are having a missionary society meeting this Monday morning. Perhaps you could speak to them all. I know their president well. Her name is Miss Taber, and she lives a block from here.”
Before Ida could say anything, Katharine had picked up a pen and started writing. “In fact, my dear, I will write you a note of introduction right now, and you can pay her a visit this evening.”
Ida ran upstairs to freshen up and returned to find Katharine waiting with her hat and shawl. “I’ll be praying while you’re gone,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
